They assure us it happened – but then it's in their interests that we should think that it did. And, yes, there'll be photographs, and people say there's video footage of the key moment – of him and his young wife – and an endless stream of experts will parade in front of the cameras saying that everything is as the authorities claim. But isn't that exactly what there'd be if it had been faked?

Or maybe the royal wedding did happen. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the correct one. As Sherlock Holmes didn't say (or did he!? (No.)): "When you have eliminated the improbable, whatever remains, however uninteresting, must be the truth." So I suppose I shall just have boringly to go around thinking that the royal wedding was rather jolly and that Osama bin Laden is dead. And, in answer to the question: "Does his death make the world a safer place?", I shall give a resounding and confident: "I don't want to think about that!"

I've lost my taste for not joining in. I've never been a republican, but I was once able to despise the royal family, even as a fan of the constitutional fudge that imprisons them (Fergie managed to eat her way out). Ten years ago, I'd have said of the wedding: "What a ridiculous fuss about nothing!" and sneered at the innocent pleasure of royalists who I assumed were older and stupider than I was. But now I'm older and stupider than I was (certainly if what they say about brain cells and alcohol is true) so I'm hoping that means I haven't made a hypocrite of my younger self.

The younger me would certainly have found scepticism about the death of Bin Laden more seductive than I do now, although possibly not sufficiently seductive to credit the existence of a conspiracy large and capable enough to organise such a cover-up. While conspiracy theorists consider mainstream opinion naive for taking things at face value, I find the conspiracy theorists naive for their belief in some humans' (or aliens' or lizards') almost infinite powers of organisation and secrecy. Anyway, if the lizards can get their shit together to that extent, they probably deserve to be in charge of everything – maybe we're in the grip of a malevolent version of the very meritocracy the absence of which we dupes bemoan.

Nevertheless, putting reason aside, the consensus surrounding Bin Laden's death would have repelled me like a particle of opposite charge. So, at the very least, I'd have tried to think, and would have loudly expressed, that it's definitely a disaster that he's dead. Thinking about it, it's ridiculous that nobody had given me a newspaper column in those days.

The paradox at the heart of a lot of not joining in is a desire to be prescriptive. It's not just that the non-joiners don't want to dance – they wish no one would. They want everyone to join in with them. So, are people who reject consensus secret megalomaniacs? Concealed behind their demands that their views should be tolerated, is there a glaring intolerance of other people's views? Or is it their understanding that we all want to be listened to, agreed with, copied, maybe even worshipped, that makes them suspicious of circumstances where most people are doing or thinking the same thing? They know that, at the centre of that whirl of concerted activity, someone's ego is being dangerously flattered.

That's certainly true of The Apprentice. Alan Sugar is treated like a living god, his basic business acumen like holy wisdom. I hope that whoever does his make-up is under instructions to remind him he's mortal because otherwise he's going to start believing he can make objects catch fire by staring at them. The sanctifying of a rich man's competence is one of the reasons why, royal wedding-enjoyer and Bin Laden death-believer though I now am, I find it impossible to join in with that basically harmless piece of TV entertainment.

The other reason is, of course, the contestants. I know they're deliberately picked to have the greatest possible disparity between their level of ability and their estimation of it. I know the consequent combination of Frank Spencer-style cock-ups and Kevin Pietersenesque hyperbole is all part of the fun. But I hate that fun and want everyone to stop enjoying it.

For the new series, the prize isn't even a job working for Alan Sugar, which, to my mind, robs the show of its poetic justice. Instead, the winner will get £250,000 to start a new business. But who will it be? The first maddening quotations from hopefuls have already been released to the media. Will it be the 26-year-old who implores: "Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon"? Or the business psychologist who claims that "weak people in business are a waste of space and a limp handshake is unforgivable"? Or the telecoms software sales manager who says: "My positive approach and very good looks make me stand out from the crowd"?

He actually said that. His "very good looks". Not "some people think I'm quite attractive", which I thought was about the most extreme proclamation of one's own twattishness that our culture permitted. No, he's announcing that he's gorgeous. I understand that the sensation of shock and distaste that I felt when I read that is what many viewers enjoy. I know it's all deliberate and my impotent outrage is the emotion the programme makers want to elicit, just as a horror film director tries to make you scared.

But I can't join in, largely because it risks weakening something else that I thought we were all joining in with: the British convention that you don't blow your own trumpet. You could be the most arrogant man in the world, but the rule is, or was, that you had to find subtler ways of expressing that than: "I'm brilliant!" You had to induce other people to praise you and then half-heartedly demur.

That seemed to be a good system for a world where people hate to hear boasting, just like personal hygiene is a good system because people hate to smell BO. Modesty and washing aren't fun, but they're courtesies we extend to improve other people's environment.

For me, an episode of The Apprentice is like footage of a dirty protest – which certainly makes me far too squeamish to want to see evidence of Bin Laden's shooting. I mean, I thought it was a bit much when the Queen had to clamber out of the opposite side of her car.